This case takes place in the United States (US) and traces the inception and growth of Project Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (Project ECHO)—a web-based "guided practice" model for primary care providers—from 2003 to 2016. After providing background on the US health system, including medical education, health care financing, and the supply and distribution of primary care and specialist providers, the case explores what motivated Project ECHO founder and liver specialist Sanjeev Arora, MD to train primary care providers in rural New Mexico in hepatitis C treatment and management. It describes early replication of the ECHO model in the US and across medical conditions and what the Project ECHO model entailed—including leveraging technology to expand access to specialty resources, best practices, case-based learning, and outcome monitoring, as well as good will among participants. A professional communications campaign, ongoing research, and persistence supported Project ECHO’s growth. The case displays three dimensions of Project ECHO’s early work: creating a new mode to redistribute the expertise of specialists to primary care practitioners, scaling this new care delivery model and measuring its impact, and identifying sustainable funding sources. The case concludes with the US Congress passing the ECHO Act to promote research on the model and Arora contemplating what else he might need to continue to scale to reach his goal of touching 1 billion lives.

Learning Objectives: To understand what is needed to design a service model; the potential for redistribution of expertise among practitioners to enhance value; the role of operational effectiveness in enabling scale up; and the importance of measuring impact for stakeholders.

This case traces the development of the voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) campaign in Nyanza Province, Kenya as it transformed from the subject of a randomized clinical trial into national policy. After providing some background on the cultural, political, and scientific context surrounding male circumcision, the case traces the PEPFAR-funded implementers' advances in delivering male circumcision in Nyanza. It examines the various delivery models used in Nyanza and the evolution of the relationship between implementers as well as on the development of the national strategic plan for VMMC released in 2009. The case ends with the implementers having come together successfully for two rapid, aggressive, 30-day implementation campaigns and the head of Kenya's National AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections Control Programme wrestling with how to make such campaigns sustainable and what lessons from the campaign to pass on to the national program.

Learning Objectives: To understand how a randomized controlled trial may be translated into a large-scale public health program; how a surgical campaign was designed and implemented for rapid impact; the role of national and international collaboration in large-scale health delivery; and the ethical tradeoffs that arise in large-scale public health programs.